Can anyone explain why putting bleach on a burn....

[Angry Girl]

will heal it?

This is a trick we learned from a chef some years ago: If you burn yourself, immediately throw regular household bleach (like for your laundry) on it.

We've been doing this for years and it works *amazingly* well. Even with what would have been second-degree burns - the pain goes away and by the next day there's no trace of any injury.

However, googling this trick only produced a single mention so far: a felllow whose grandmother used to put sponge bleach on his sunburns to heal (and it worked).

Otherwise the only info is about how bleach will give you a chemical burn, blablabla. But not a single explanation why we get the results we do. Anyone out there know why?

[NJCher]

1. did you know bleach is a carcinogen?

Cher

[jdots]

2. here is another handy dandy voo-doo trick.

got a splinter ? sure you do because you are a klutz and have been working with wood or metal.put some elmers glue or carpenter's glue on it and the splinter comes out (really works )
Now if you are a freeper (not anyone here but lurkers )
you probably are wondering what to do with those boogers you want to store so you can eat them later,soak them in bleach and save them on your cheeks till it's meal time.

[neweurope]

3. Bleach is dangerous. Try lavender oil (1oo % pure). Works miracles

on burns AND insect bites. Totally healthy.

Bleach is BAD BAD BAD. Producing it is bad, getting rid of it is bad. I'd never put it on myself, I'd rather have a burn. But do try lavender oil. I've been lugging a little bottle of lavender oil around in my handbag for 16 years. And everybody who tried it agrees.

-------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[lynne]

4. Bleach? Sounds hurtful -

- and I'd always heard to use vinegar on burns. I've been using vinegar for kitchen burns and sunburn for years and it works like a charm. If you have sunburn, using vinegar will take the heat out and will prevent it from peeling.

I use bleach when I've been exposed to poison ivy and after the ivy erupts to dry it up and heal it. Burns like hell when put on active poison ivy but it does work.

[xmas74]

5. I've never heard that.

I mess w/ bleach as little as possible. When I took haz-mat courses, I learned about how deadly it can be.

[Cadence]

8. I have a friend that drank bleach when she was a

teenager. She said she threw up for several hours and not much else happened. But I HAVE to think there was some internal damage of some sort. How can there not be?

[xmas74]

10. I can tell you this much...

I took haz-mat courses, for emergencies. If there is a tanker rollover on the highway and the mast states that they are carrying bleach, there is an immediate long-range evacuation. Experts are called in-there is an 800 number that is for bleach only (none of the others have just one speciality).
They taught us in class that it is considered to be the most dangerous spill situation today.

[okoboji]

6. I have a friend

that uses bleach when he gets posion ivy. I seen him do it.

Hurts like hell, but it kills the poison ivy itch from his skin. He just poors it on and then quickly washes it off.

never heard of using it on burns

[u4ic]

7. I wonder if it's because it's so caustic

that one's skin speeds up healing.

I use aloe vera gel, myself. Works pretty good.

[Floogeldy]

9. Never heard of it, but . . .

. . . doesn't bleach totally kill germs? It seems that would include bad bacteria that festers in burns.

It just might work.

[montana_hazeleyes]

11. My husband worked in a commercial laundry

years ago and learned this . I just couldn't believe it! But I burned my hand on the oven and he poured a little bleach on it and it immediately stopped hurting and did seem to heal fast. I've done it since, same thing. Just on small, minor burns though.

[fortyfeetunder]

12. Sodium hypochlorite , 5% solution (household bleach)

is a disinfectant.

I have also heard stories about using it to treat open sores and infections, but I'd never recommend it.

The old wives' recommendation I have is using cocoa butter. It works and it doesn't sting.

[orleans]

13. omg! wouldn't that sting or burn?

are you suppose to mix it with water or use by itself?

[Spirochete]

14. When I was 12

I caught my shirt on fire, playing around with a Zippo and some lighter fluid. The neighbors came over, held me down, and put Purex bleach all over it. There were a lot of second degree burns. That hurt so bad! I went to the hospital screaming, it was so bad. And it sure didn't seem to help it heal any faster. I do hear it works for very minor first degree burns, though - which was what prompted the neighbors to do that in the first place.